J.D. Steens (Author of Philosophical Travels with Carl)

J.D. Steens rated a book did not like it De Anima (On the Soul) by Aristotle	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
De Anima is soul and soul is life and its capacity for self-movement. It stands in contrast to inorganic matter that is moved but does not move itself. Aristotle breaks down the soul into the nutritive faculty, sense perception, intellect and desire. ...more
Dec 29, 2025 01:08PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of De Anima by Aristotle. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — De Anima by Aristotle <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
J.D. Steens rated a book liked it The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Most science writing is about what we can see. It’s about the land and nature. Relatively, what happens below the earth’s oceans, about 70% of earth’s surface, doesn’t get much attention. This is the niche that Carson fills. Carson wrote this book in ...more
Dec 29, 2025 09:18AM · like · see review
J.D. Steens rated a book it was ok The Pecking Order: A Bold New Look at How Family and Society Determine Who We Become by Dalton Conley	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The book presents a lot of data, and it was easy to get lost as far as the main theme here other than he posits a few criteria as the standard for success and then says there’s a social pecking order relative to these criteria for success. But when i ...more
Dec 29, 2025 09:08AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Pecking Order by Dalton Conley. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Pecking Order by Dalton Conley <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
J.D. Steens rated a book it was ok Black Hole Survival Guide by Janna Levin	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The book is a fairly free-flowing description of what is thought to be known about black holes. It pulls in many other cosmological topics and it’s not done in the typical science (non-friendly) writing style. This Levin book has virtues that way for ...more
Dec 29, 2025 09:03AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Black Hole Survival Guide by Janna Levin. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Black Hole Survival Guide by Janna Levin <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
J.D. Steens rated a book liked it Writing from the Center by Scott Russell Sanders (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
There’s a nice flow with the words in this book and the manner of how Sanders expresses himself. He is a writer. But what then is a writer? As a writing professor at a University, Sanders has a point of view. There’s the craft side of writing. Good En ...more
Dec 29, 2025 08:54AM · like · see review
J.D. Steens rated a book really liked it At the Existentialist Café by Sarah Bakewell	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This is an excellent account of the major existential and phenomenological thinkers in the mid-20th century. The book is a model of what a biographical study should be. Regarding the relationship between these two schools of thought, AI says that phen ...more
Nov 30, 2025 10:45AM · like · see review
J.D. Steens rated a book liked it Astronomy and Cosmogony by James Jeans	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The book (1928) lies heavily on the mathematical side. I pulled from it what I could. There are two points to highlight: First, solar radiation (e.g. why our sun shines) results from what he calls “the annihilation of matter.” This is Einstein’s energ ...more
Nov 09, 2025 11:01AM · like · see review
J.D. Steens rated a book liked it The Mysterious Universe by James Hopwood Jeans	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Regarding his “outlook on the Universe as a whole,” Jeans (1930) sets the tone with this introduction in his forward: “The question at issue is ultimately one for philosophical discussion, but before philosophers have a right to speak, science ought ...more
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J.D. Steens rated a book liked it Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change by W. David Marx (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The book is an excellent survey of the strong current of status displays that underlie cultural life. The signalling is everywhere. As the author shows, it’s subtle until one is sensitized to what’s going on. Most of us are tuned into the overt stuff ...more
Nov 02, 2025 11:18AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Status and Culture by W. David Marx. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Status and Culture by W. David Marx <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
J.D. Steens rated a book liked it Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications (Nature of Human Society) by Louis Dumont	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Dumont uses the Indian caste system to establish a universal sociological point (law): human organization is inherently hierarchical. He goes on to say that Westerners fight hierarchical notions because we’ve been indoctrinated with thoughts about eq ...more
Oct 27, 2025 10:50AM · like · see review

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De Anima is soul and soul is life and its capacity for self-movement. It stands in contrast to inorganic matter that is moved but does not move itself.

Aristotle breaks down the soul into the nutritive faculty, sense perception, intellect and desire. ...more

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The Sea Around Us
by Rachel Carson

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Most science writing is about what we can see. It’s about the land and nature. Relatively, what happens below the earth’s oceans, about 70% of earth’s surface, doesn’t get much attention. This is the niche that Carson fills.

Carson wrote this book in Most science writing is about what we can see. It’s about the land and nature. Relatively, what happens below the earth’s oceans, about 70% of earth’s surface, doesn’t get much attention. This is the niche that Carson fills.

Carson wrote this book in 1950, before plate tectonics pulled a lot of pieces together into a comprehensive theory to explain a good part of what happens with seascapes below the ocean surface. As a result, she writes about underwater ridges and mid-ocean islands that breach the ocean surface without putting these into the now generally accepted plate tectonics context.

Carson discusses the role of oceans in global climate patterns,* and, in doing so, she also mentions natural cycles that contribute to warmer climate. In this regard, she states that “it is almost certainly true that we are still in the warming-up stage following the last Pleistocene glaciation - that the world’s climate, over the next thousands of years, will grow considerably warmer before beginning a downward swing into another ice age.” She does not reference the current emphasis on human contributions to global warming.

Carson is a model for clear, interesting and pertinent science writing. In closing this book, she touches on the significance of her topic in this way: “[T]he sea lies all around us. The commerce of all lands must cross it. The very winds that move over the lands have been cradled on its broad expanse and seek ever to return to it. The continents themselves dissolve and pass to the sea, in grain after grain of eroded land. So the rains that rose from it return again to the rivers. In its mysterious past it encompasses all the dim origins of life and receives in the end, after, it may be, many transmutations, the dead husks of that same life. For all at last return to the sea - to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the everflowing stream of time, the beginning and the end.” This, which sums up the title of the book, is writing that is up there with Muir and Leopold.

*In discussing the relevance of oceans to global climate patterns, Carson relies on the early 20th century writing of Otto Pettersson’s theory (Climatic Variations in Historic and Prehistoric Time, 1912) of climate variation, caused by submarine tidal waves. Carson refers to this work as “an extraordinarily interesting document,” though I’m not clear how it affects climate. A magazine article states that “oceanographers and climate scientists have learned much about internal waves (the “internal tide” being just one special, dramatic example of internal waves), including the realization that they play an essential role in ocean ecosystems and the climate. These giant swells—most as tall as skyscrapers—tear through the world’s oceans. Yet a large internal wave’s biggest effect comes not from its journey, but from its death. When an internal wave breaks against an underwater landmass such as a continental slope, just as waves break on a beach, it violently mixes the warm upper layers of the ocean with the cold bottom layers. This mixing pulls heat and carbon dioxide down to the ocean’s depths, and cycles nutrients back up toward the surface.” ...more

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The Pecking Order: A Bold New Look at How Family and Society Determine Who We Become
by Dalton Conley

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The book presents a lot of data, and it was easy to get lost as far as the main theme here other than he posits a few criteria as the standard for success and then says there’s a social pecking order relative to these criteria for success. But when i The book presents a lot of data, and it was easy to get lost as far as the main theme here other than he posits a few criteria as the standard for success and then says there’s a social pecking order relative to these criteria for success. But when it comes to what variables are key to explaining who is and who is not successful, this is where it gets fuzzy. As Conley concludes regarding his own trajectory relative to his sisters, he asks: “How much of these differences between my sister’s and my life are due to our family’s trajectory, to the local pecking order among our peer groups, and to the way our parents socialized each of us? And, alternatively, which differences are due to other factors like gender differences, birth order, and random events? And what about innate genetic predispositions, which kind of role do they play? The answer to all these questions is, of course, ‘Yes.”’ I think this last paragraph pretty well summarizes his explanation for what accounts for one’s relative position on the pecking order, though the subtitle, “how family and society determine who we become,” also sums it up well.

There are three other more fundamental problems with this book.

Conley presumes that all of us are affected by a pecking order. Here he draws on Rousseau’s argument that we are all born free and equal but society imposes inequality. That thesis needs some serious critiquing. For one thing, it presumes there’s one human nature when there is, per Darwinian theory, multiple human natures across a broad array of characteristics. On the hierarchical inequality scale, some are into it big time whereas many others are not into the race for relative rank and would just as soon be left alone where rank order doesn’t pertain other than when those into rank impose inequality at the latter’s expense. Rousseau might think we are all innately about equality but the counter argument is that while many are, many are not. The same could be argued about contemporary (i.e. not state of nature) social life.

By the same token, Conley’s standard for success is quite the conventional argument. It’s education (with special attention to elite colleges and private schools) , occupation, prestige, earnings. Here Conley is about who does and who does not have merit, but doesn’t the standard of success vary? If one is a custodian or landscaper or housekeeper or carpenter or electrician or truck driver, etc. and is good at their jobs and enjoy it, why isn’t this “success?” A whole tome could be written on this topic alone and how promoting the “meritocracy” line (merit’s flip side are those who don’t have merit) just reinforces what Rousseau was concerned about: socially imposed conditions of inequality.

Lastly, and related to the first two points, is the issue of genetic predisposition. Conley gives lip service to the role that genes play, but then snuffs it out by saying that the standard of success/unsuccess is socially determined. Anyone with more than one child knows that personality characteristics (“Character”) is pretty much evident from the get go. We are temperamentally (not deterministically and that whole trope) inclined toward one path and not another. How that gets manifested socially will vary, but the underlying motive force is clear enough: Those into hierarchy might be bullies, might be ambitious political types, might be friends who offer “helpful” advice, or pastors who need to strut their stuff in front of their flock. Those not into hierarchy might be the introverts who just want to be left alone, or the “common” man or woman who want to do their own thing. Or an identical twin can spend a life in an Eastern Ashram pursuing the meaning of life, whereas the other one can spend his life hiking in the forests experiencing the joys of life itself, in the moment. In other words, one motive force - freedom to be oneself, void of social pressures and noise - is expressed differently, but Conley conflates invariant motive force with variable social (i.e. phenotypic) expression. That’s a mistake in my view. ...more

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Black Hole Survival Guide
by Janna Levin

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The book is a fairly free-flowing description of what is thought to be known about black holes. It pulls in many other cosmological topics and it’s not done in the typical science (non-friendly) writing style. This Levin book has virtues that way for ...more

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Writing from the Center
by Scott Russell Sanders (Goodreads Author)

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There’s a nice flow with the words in this book and the manner of how Sanders expresses himself. He is a writer. But what then is a writer? As a writing professor at a University, Sanders has a point of view.

There’s the craft side of writing. Good En There’s a nice flow with the words in this book and the manner of how Sanders expresses himself. He is a writer. But what then is a writer? As a writing professor at a University, Sanders has a point of view.

There’s the craft side of writing. Good English, non-cliche writing, treating words and expressions somewhat as a poet might, engaging readers with a good story as an entertainer might. Alternatively, the craft of writing also tells us what a good writer avoids: e.g. fancy words the intent of which is to “dazzle your reader” with “verbal hot dogging.” Sanders admits that he tended toward these writing pitfalls early on, as an “aspiring writer” before settling down with a more natural and comfortable style that this book exhibits, but he’s critical of what he sees coming out of the university writing programs these days. Sanders quotes one observer to say that there’s a distinction between competence and vision when it comes to writing, and writing schools these days lack the latter. Sanders quotes another to say of contemporary fiction, “‘in the Detroits of our culture, the manufacturer of writers continues.’” Of poetry, another observer comments: “‘I detest the clever verse disguised as poetry that emanates so frequently from the academic poetry factories….’” And Donald Hall, Sanders says, “Likens writing classes to sweatshops, assembly lines, and fast food franchises….mass producing bland verse, which Hall refers to, unlovingly, as McPoems….and modish fiction and poetry [that] will be featured in next year’s Salvation Army book sale.”

Picking up on the lack of “vision” theme, I sense a good amount of writing these days seems infected with “good writing,” as if writing well is more important than the substance of what is conveyed, to the point that writing feels like manipulation. A related issue is that being a writer seems to be the goal, rather than having something important to say, with writing being the vehicle for expressing it. Is there a problem with the “aspiring writer” concept, as if the goal is to write, but not necessarily because one has something worthy to say? When Sanders started early on, he seemed to fall into that trap, fretting about the lack of recognition about what he was putting out there, to the point that he contemplated suicide, adding, oddly, “who hasn’t?” Isn’t that falling into the trap of catering to popular demand, where one is dependent on their validation? If a writer has something important to say, expressing it should be its own reward, not the lack of attention it gets.

As he settled into maturity, Sanders moved toward the substance of writing - of what was to be conveyed and here I had a mixed reaction. Sanders got a lot of questions about his choice to settle down on his home turf in the Midwest (Indiana), as this was far from the coastal “writing centers” and the Midwest was perceived to be infected with parochialism and hicks. Sanders is good about sticking up for his Midwest roots and the value of being rooted in a place. This is one of his intended meanings about writing from the center (the title of this book). There’s a lot of solid Midwestern values and common sense that come out of this book.

Even so, there’s a troubling understory in this book that is problematic. Sanders’ focus is his concern about the Earth and how shabbily we treat it. There’s nothing new here. It’s been said many times by many before. While Sanders echoes his concern, his various “we must” dicta quickly gets tiring, as if venting is enough. There’s nothing easier than to sit on the sideline, as a writer, and proclaim what ought to be done. This is mostly a preaching to the choir type of thing without any sense about how difficult it is in a democracy for elected leaders who care to actually move the needle even slightly in the right direction because they must deal with voters who care about nothing much more than the here and now.

So there’s that, but there’s the even more troubling aspect to Sanders’ writing in that he says his job as a writer is to unearth universal truths and share them with the world. The goal of a writer is “to come fully awake.” Writing for him is a “spiritual practice” and “our job is to open the jar, or let it be opened, so that a greater reality may come streaming in.” What that reality entails is that we come from a “transcendent source” as the ground of our being, acknowledging “the presence of more-than-personal meaning and power.” This is the other intended meaning of Sanders’ writing from the center. “Find your way to that ultimate ground, root your way there, and you will have something worth saying.” If the mystics are right, and Sanders thinks they are, “we can have no more important task than to seek the center. Here is the honey, here is the slippery essence that eludes all language.”

While Sanders is overt in letting his readers know where he’s coming from, that perspective is troubling for those who are not in the same place. Perhaps the clue comes from his story about living in the dorm in college where he makes a point of putting up a poster of the periodic table, “as a counterpoint of sorts to the pin-ups beside my roommate's bed.” There is a holier-than-thou tinge to the way he tells this story, as if he has the Truth and others do not. ...more

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At the Existentialist Café
by Sarah Bakewell

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This is an excellent account of the major existential and phenomenological thinkers in the mid-20th century. The book is a model of what a biographical study should be.

Regarding the relationship between these two schools of thought, AI says that phen This is an excellent account of the major existential and phenomenological thinkers in the mid-20th century. The book is a model of what a biographical study should be.

Regarding the relationship between these two schools of thought, AI says that phenomenology “is the study of subjective experience,” whereas existentialism applies that specifically to the experience and expression of human freedom . So, there are two schools of thought involved here that are related.

These are unappealing figures, both as individuals and as thinkers. To some degree, Bakewell agrees. “As individuals and philosophers,” she writes, “they were hopelessly flawed.” Friendships among themselves frayed over intellectual disagreement and perceived disloyalties and slights. Though highly regarded as voices for their time, it’s almost as if their intellectual accentuation came at the expense of being “normal” in an interpersonal and social sense.

As cases in point, it’s hard not to get over Heidegger’s alliance with the Nazis and, to the extent that philosophy is thought to guide one’s “being-in-the-world,” how much of his philosophy was fundamentally antithetical to everything that might be regarded as humane. On this point, Bakewell comments that “Heidegger set himself against the philosophy of humanism, and he himself was rarely humane in his behaviour.” Of Sartre, Bakewell said “he was monstrous. He was self-indulgent, demanding, bad-tempered. He was a sex addict…who walked away from friendships saying he felt no regret….He defended a range of odious regimes, and made a cult of violence.”

Bakewell also says “These are not exemplary thinkers. They are interesting thinkers.” That might be a stretch. To take three of her philosophers as cases in point,* it’s hard to crack the code of what Heidegger was trying to do philosophically. Heidegger’s Being-in-world has something to do with our not being isolated entities, but rather being integrated with and formed by our social world. As that seems to be a stating of the obvious, it must be more than that, though what that might be is not clear. Sartre emphasizes personal freedom and choice, but the Schopenhauer question pertains: on what basis do we choose? As Sartre denies biological essence, it’s a free-for-all in a care-free universe. While Sartre sort of presumes we make choices for the good, the implications of that position is that we can, without consequence, choose to do various evils. Jaspers tells us** about the appearance of God, popping up avatar-like, simultaneously in the 500 BCEs, across Greece, Iran, India, China. Rather than mentioning that trading routes could have easily accounted for the similarities in thought that lend themselves to the putative presence of the divine, he opts for a mystical leap of faith instead. Jaspers can yearn for the mystical devine, but the flip side of that yearning is the deeper question: why does he yearn for that? Might it be the need for eternity, and the fear of the everlasting void? In other words, might not evolutionary drivers be at work?

In spite of Bakewell’s reservations, she nevertheless admits that she was taken by Heidegger and Sartre in particular. The former engaged her because his thought was “exhilarating,” and the latter because “he bursts out on all sides with energy, peculiarity, generosity and communicativeness.” There might be a tinge of admiration among their devotees for these outsized personalities, much as students might be taken by cocksure professors. Given the popularity of these philosopher types, they spoke for a lost or cynical generation or two who tossed the past and yearned for something new. As Bakewell writes, “their ideas and lives were rooted in a dark, morally compromised century. The political turmoil and wild notions of their times marked them….”

I also sense that something more fundamental was going on with these philosophers: Nothing solid anchored their thoughts. There was not much other than the sheer power of their intellect to come up with profundities of one sort or another (Heidegger), with thoughts about freedom (Sartre), or with a desire for something beyond the void (Jaspers). In particular, there’s no attempt to look toward our biological being as the foundation for philosophical expression. Had they done so, they would see that we are inherently subjective beings concerned about our own well-being and survival, which may or may not, given biological variability, include the interest of others. The need for freedom - Sartre’s freedom - is locked into our biological essence. We need to be free to seek what we need and to defend against what we don’t want. What we seek and defend against, and how we seek and defend is where Sartre’s freedom of choice comes in. Survival and well-being also gets us, at least somewhat, into the Heidegger domain in which we are, inherently as part of our essence, substantially formed by our social interactions, but this is also where the tension between the self’s interest and the group’s interest meet.

And this is where a hefty degree of biological realism is healthy when it comes to assessing human motivation. Some people opt to do good, which is where Sartre seemed to be in his personal life, but he was misguided by his intellectual assessment of communism and the evils perpetrated under a deceptive ideology that proclaimed otherwise. It’s the same with Heidegger and getting a glimpse into why he made the choices he did. Regardless of what his philosophical tome may or may not have said, he seemed to be, fully, about himself, including complicity in one of history’s many evil periods. And, might not Jasper’s religious outlook be the product of a “robust imagination,” manifesting Hume’s observation that thoughts related to values are the product of our passions, i.e. in this case, the need for the divine and eternal life?

*From Bakewell, I sense that Simone de Beauvoir's writing on feminism was some breakthrough stuff.
**This example is not in the Bakewell book. ...more

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Astronomy and Cosmogony
by James Jeans

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The book (1928) lies heavily on the mathematical side. I pulled from it what I could. There are two points to highlight:

First, solar radiation (e.g. why our sun shines) results from what he calls “the annihilation of matter.” This is Einstein’s energ The book (1928) lies heavily on the mathematical side. I pulled from it what I could. There are two points to highlight:

First, solar radiation (e.g. why our sun shines) results from what he calls “the annihilation of matter.” This is Einstein’s energy=mass in real time. Jeans describes in this way: “Fifteen years before Perrin had suggested that stellar energy might originate in the formation of heavy atoms out of simpler ones, I had pointed out that an enormous store of energy could be derived out of the total annihilation of matter, positive and negative charges rushing together and neutralising and so annihilating one another, the resulting energy being set free as radiation.” This, in his mind, “arises from the annihilation of electrons and protons” and “their imprisoned energy being set free in the form of radiation. “

I read this as the fusion process by which hydrogen turns into helium and then the heavier elements. However, when I looked it up to confirm, the AI response said that the annihilation of matter is, distinctly, not fusion. Rather, annihilation occurs when particles and antiparticles meet. While Jean’s use of anti-matter is clear, the contemporary reference to particles-antiparticle annihilation is not.

Second, Jeans spends a lot of time discussing galaxies, and relies heavily on Hubble’s galactic classification and evolution scheme. Specifically, he points to two prongs of galactic structure, spiral and barred spiral galaxies, that in time morph into elliptical galaxies. Jeans, though, not only accepts the Hubble classification and evolutionary schema without question, but tries to explain these from a Newtonian perspective, i.e. gravitational attraction. A gravitational center lies at the heart of these galaxies and they pull surrounding matter and energy toward the center, which in his mind is the elliptical galactic form.. And, as that pulling occurs, speeding up and compressing matter and energy, angular momentum spits out a good part of that matter and energy that in time forms disks around the equatorial plane that are manifested in the spiral and barred spiral structures. He says that “when a nebula shrinks and its rotation increases, matter is inevitably ejected from the nebular equator and spread over the equatorial plain,” which are the disks.

Working within that paradigm, Jeans goes through various mathematical formulations to explain what he and Hubble saw. Tellingly, and at odds with where he thought theory would take him, he finds that “All nebulae show two convolutions [entry points to the galactic center] and no more.” But beyond spirals and two entry points, Jeans comes up empty and he can only conclude that “Motion in the spiral nebulae must be governed by forces unknown to us.”

But, do galactic structures and evolution manifest Einstein’s theory in “real time?” Einstein said that gravity was not a force. He said, rather, that matter and energy flow via spacetime curvature to the gravitational center. Gravity does nothing. It is merely a presence toward which matter and energy flow. The origin of movement to the center comes from the inertial properties of matter and energy itself, per Newton’s first law. It’s self-propelling pushing, not gravitational pulling.

Seen this way, the classification and evolution of galactic structures can be viewed in a different way: clouds of gas and dust gather; they form spiral arms around the equatorial plane (the why of disk formation needs more explanation than angular momentum), with two distinct entry places into the elliptical center and with tangential arms flowing into them; with further consolidation, the arms pull in and give rise to barred galaxies; and with further consolidation, they give rise to the elliptical structures which is the condensation energy and mass at the galactic center that, presumably now days means also that there’s a black hole at the center. ...more

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The Mysterious Universe
by James Hopwood Jeans

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Regarding his “outlook on the Universe as a whole,” Jeans (1930) sets the tone with this introduction in his forward: “The question at issue is ultimately one for philosophical discussion, but before philosophers have a right to speak, science ought ...more

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Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change
by W. David Marx (Goodreads Author)

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The book is an excellent survey of the strong current of status displays that underlie cultural life. The signalling is everywhere. As the author shows, it’s subtle until one is sensitized to what’s going on. Most of us are tuned into the overt stuff The book is an excellent survey of the strong current of status displays that underlie cultural life. The signalling is everywhere. As the author shows, it’s subtle until one is sensitized to what’s going on. Most of us are tuned into the overt stuff - like boasting and the occasional pulling of rank, and there are the cultural norms that somewhat keep these in check. What Marx covers is different. He’s writing about status displays that are cloaked, for example, by “cultural sophistication” and principled action. Both set up standards that then separate people into superior and inferior ranks.

On the one end of the culture, there is old school wealth that has its way (akin to inherent superiority) of maintaining social position relative to those with “lesser” status, and the nouveau elite who find ways to distinguish themselves from “the rabble“ and who change status symbols when they become commonplace. Marx sees this in particular with the “tastemakers,” such as writers, academics, artists of various sorts. On the other end, are the anti-establishment types who, since they cannot crack the elite circles, become reverse snobs in their own right, looking down on reacting to any and all conventions associated with the established norms of what it means to be successful. Both status poles, and everything in between, have their set of norms that set themselves from those they don’t want to be associated with, and norms to ensure that conformity to each class’s set of norms is enforced, with ostracization being the most severe penalty as it brings loss of status as well as loss of community "with ones kind."

Once one becomes enlightened to what’s going on here, it’s difficult to not see the pervasive nature of status displays. To be sure, Marx acknowledges that many are into their own subject matter for their own sake, and there is the “common man” who accepts an “ordinary” status just fine. But, for those who do engage, which are largely what we have today, “standards” and “tastes” serve as the rationale for separating the wheat from the chaff. These are the metrics for status.

While Marx’s descriptions are good, the book has two flaws. First, there’s no attempt to anchor such behaviors in evolutionary theory. That we engage, peacock like, in displaying our standing, is clear enough, but it begs the question as to why we do this. To explain this, we have to go back to evolutionary imperatives that serve the self’s interests - benefits, including reproductive privileges and options that accrue to the higher status individuals relative to the lower status individuals and groups. Given Darwinian variation, not all people are into this game to the same degree. Second, to address the inequalities implicit in a rank-driven culture, Marx opts in favor of giving artists more esteem and status benefits. I don’t know where he was going with that line of thought as the artistic community, under the cover of “creativity,” largely seems to exhibit the very behaviors that Marx describes critically.

Marx refers to Rousseau (presumably in The Origins of Inequality) who “blamed the downfall of humanity on esteem.” Marx then quotes Rousseau to say, “He who sang or danced the best; he who was the most handsome, the strongest, the most adroit or the most eloquent became the most highly regarded, and this was the first step towards inequality and at the same time toward vice.” Rousseau is onto something. We have a meritocracy that emphasizes elite status. If one doesn’t have merit, one is inherently inferior. Rather than looking down at “ordinary people,” we ought to be valuing them for the work they do to support society. Everyone is contributing to the good of the whole and the lack of respect for the common person perhaps is the reason Trump most resonates with them. And, rather than granting one segment of culture with “esteem and status benefits,” we ought to be doing the exact opposite. Society should not, and cannot, hold back individual success vis-a-vis others. Inequality that way is inherent. But society can and should establish an ethos that keeps unequal in those ways in their place. In the reported words of Indian lore, “The best hunter eats last.” Regarding that standard, the USA is about as far away from it as one can get.

By writing about his, Marx’s book is of the same genre as Thorstein Veblen (The Theory of the Leisure Class) and Vance Packard (The Status Seekers). It’s an update on the same types of behavior these authors pointed out. The second half of the book was less strong than the first half, I presume because his essential point was well established by then, making the rest of the book less informative. ...more

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Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications (Nature of Human Society)
by Louis Dumont

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Dumont uses the Indian caste system to establish a universal sociological point (law): human organization is inherently hierarchical. He goes on to say that Westerners fight hierarchical notions because we’ve been indoctrinated with thoughts about eq Dumont uses the Indian caste system to establish a universal sociological point (law): human organization is inherently hierarchical. He goes on to say that Westerners fight hierarchical notions because we’ve been indoctrinated with thoughts about equality. Because of that, we are blind to the benefits that hierarchical social organization brings. There is not only order, which includes those on the lower rungs accepting their inferior position, but that order best ensures the welfare of the whole.

I get the sense that Dumont's conclusion is infused with his own philosophical bent, which is along the lines of Plato’s Republic where it was argued that society was organized hierarchically (Philosopher Kings, warriors, the working class) to ensure order and benefits for all. This is somewhat akin to India’s caste system except that in India, the Brahmins (priests-philosophers) and warriors (rulers) were separated, not united as in the Philosopher-King.

There’s no mention by Dumont of Plato’s Laws, which are more in line with what is seen as India’s caste system. Dumont argues that this system is ultimately based on religion and, specifically, on the division between clean and unclean when it comes to the tasks of disposing of dead bodies. To keep pure, the Brahmins had to remove, and not sully, themselves from such impurities.* (There’s no mention by Dumont that the point of purity was oneness with the divine, which is another parallel with Plato, the motivation for which required separation from bodily concerns. The deeper question is why is there this preoccupation with Oneness with the divine.) To enforce this division, a rigorous system of unwritten rules and expectations was set up to keep the proper social order in place. Hence, the similarities to Plato’s Laws. What you have here is an elaborate system set up to protect the interests of the ruling class (priests whose job it was more to propound than work) and their allies, those who held political power, at the expense of the workers and outcastes who lived and worked at their mercy.**

An argument can be, and has been, made that those on the lower rungs of the social ladder can be content with their place as long as they are fed with a modicum of benefits, including entertainment (“bread and circuses”) and the security of themselves and their families.*** That’s a self-serving story line as it would entail immense costs that would be incurred if one deviated from the prevailing social order.

Looked at from the perspective of biological principles where the self’s interested rules, a counter argument can be made that the need to be free is paramount, and equality is freedom’s prerequisite. The self’s interests include the need to be part of group life and to seek the interests of the group as well as the self, but it, distinctly, does not mean that the social order should violate the norms of equality and reciprocity. In other words, it’s the exact opposite to Dumont’s argument. The self’s interest can and typically does include the good of the whole argument that Dumont makes in connection with the caste system. Social order is best served by promoting and protecting the interests of the whole. It is not based on subjugated caste-like division. (And, how much social and economic talent is locked down within the lower castes and outcaste divisions?)

No doubt there is a natural inequality that comes with birth, but rather than society lauding its virtues and protecting its interests that way, the laws, rules and customs should be that everyone contributes in their own way to the good of the whole and they are respected and honored for it. Those who violate this norm should be pounced upon and kept in their own place, even if this means, in the old Indian saying, “the best hunter eats last.”

*”The view of the ordered whole, in which each is assigned his place, is fundamentally religious,” Dumont writes. “The language of religion is the language of hierarchy, and that hierarchy is necessarily…a matter of pure and impure.”

**Almost as a throwaway, there’s this line by Dumont that in a nutshell captures the essence of what’s going on in the caste system. “There are, briefly, two kinds of castes: Those who hold the land, and those who do not.”

***Referencing de Broglie observation about the quantum world, Dumont says that individuality remains within a fused system. The emphasis by the West on equality and freedom is that there’s no commitment to the interests of the whole. That is an errant argument. Tribalism in its various iterations is built, biologically, into our soul. With the group, the individual survives; without it, the self dies. Patriotism, both good and bad, has everything to do with the “good of the whole.” Dumont makes his sociological point - and his universal - by arguing that at the superior level there is unity; at the inferior level there is distinction. How subjugation is unity is baffling, unless serious hoodwinking is put in place, which could very well be the way India’s caste system is best characterized. ...more

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